February 2nd, 2010 
Expectant mums need to stop blaming their bump for memory lapses, say experts who want to dispel the “baby brain” myth.
Neither pregnancy nor motherhood addle a woman’s brain, say the researchers based on their study of 1,241 women both before and after having babies.
Any absentmindedness might be adaptive, shifting attention to the baby, the British Journal of Psychiatry says.
Lead researcher Professor Christensen said: “Part of the problem is that pregnancy manuals tell women they are likely to experience memory and concentration problems – so women and their partners are primed to attribute any memory lapse to the ‘hard to miss’ physical sign of pregnancy.
Her team from The Australian National University followed up the large group of women at four-year intervals using memory tests.
During the course of the study more than half of the women fell pregnant, but this did not appear to have any impact on memory.
The test scores remained unchanged before and after pregnancy and did not differ greatly between the group of women who became mums and the group of those who did not.
Professor Christensen and her team said: “Not so long ago, pregnancy was ‘confinement’ and motherhood meant the end of career aspirations.
“Our results challenge the view that mothers are anything other than the intellectual peers of their contemporaries.
“obstetricians, family doctors and midwives may need to use the findings from this study to promote the fact that ‘placenta brain’ is not inevitable.”
Cathy Warwick of the Royal College of Midwives said: “It is about time that some research lays to rest this notion of pregnant women and the ‘baby brain’ myth.
“The physical and emotional stresses on a woman’s body from pregnancy can make women feel more tired than usual.
“As we all know tiredness – for men as well as women – can make us lose concentration and cause us to function less effectively.
“This is why midwives encourage pregnant women to take appropriate rest breaks, at home and at work. Many pregnant women will need this rest, and all of them deserve it.”
Related
- Low Choline Levels in Pregnant Women Raise Babies’ Risk for Brain and Spinal-Cord Defects
A newborn’s risk for brain and spinal-cord defects rises if the mother has low blood levels of the nutrient choline during pregnancy, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered.
The scientists used a collection of 180,000 blood samples from pregnant California women to look for risk factors for two neural tube birth defects: anencephaly, a lethal condition in which the brain and skull do not develop, and spina bifida, a spinal-cord malformation that causes paralysis and lifelong disability. Neural tube defects have become less common since the 1996 decision to fortify the U.S. food supply with folic acid, a B-vitamin shown to prevent the defects, but they have not disappeared.
“Families whose infants die or suffer permanent disability from NTDs still feel the burden of these defects,” said Gary Shaw, DrPH, professor of neonatology and primary author of the new research, which will appear Aug. 14 in Epidemiology.
About 500 pregnancies per year are affected by neural tube defects in California alone, noted Shaw. “We’re keen on understanding what risk factors explain the continued disease.”
Shaw’s study targeted a group of nutrients suspected to promote brain and spinal-cord development. In early pregnancy, a sealed tube forms along the embryo’s back that later grows into the brain and spinal cord. Neural tube defects occur if the tube does not seal correctly. Based on prior research on folic acid, scientists believe that development of the neural tube may depend on a specific biochemical pathway that requires several vitamins and essential nutrients to operate properly. Shaw’s team measured blood levels of 13 of these nutrients in two groups of women who participated in California’s prenatal birth-defect screening program.
From 180,000 pregnant women screened between 2003 and 2005, the researchers identified 80 whose pregnancies were affected by neural tube defects. Their blood samples were compared to 409 samples randomly selected from among the women whose infants had no structural birth defects.
Choline, an essential nutrient found in egg yolks, soy, wheat germ and meats, was the only nutrient measured whose blood levels were linked to risk of neural tube defects.
“As choline levels went up, risk went down,” Shaw said. Risk for neural tube defects was 2.4 times higher in women with the lowest blood choline levels compared to women with average blood choline levels. The highest blood choline levels were associated with the lowest risk. A previous study by Shaw’s group showed that consumption of choline-rich foods was associated with lower risk for neural tube defects, but this is the first study to evaluate blood levels of choline and NTD risk.
Shaw cautioned that the blood samples tested were obtained between the 15th and 18th week of pregnancy, well after formation of the neural tube, which seals around the sixth week of pregnancy. Future research will be needed to examine blood choline levels in early pregnancy, he said. Researchers also need to test whether choline supplements given in early pregnancy reduce the rates of neural tube defects. Right now, prenatal multivitamins contain little or no choline.
- Multi-vitamin during pregnancy ‘cuts chances of having an underweight baby’
Children who are underweight at birth are more likely to develop health problems including difficulty breathing and jaundice.
Experts believe that they could also be more likely to develop a number of major illnesses, including diabetes and heart disease, in later life.
But new research suggests that taking a specially created supplement could cut the risk of having a small baby in half.
The multivitamin also improved the health of the pregnant women, the study found.
The research team called for larger studies to confirm their findings.
But they said that if these were consistent with their results many pregnant women could benefit from such supplements.
Dr Louise Brough, from Massey University in New Zealand, one of the co-authors of the study, said: “It is especially important to have good nutrient levels during early pregnancy as this is a critical time for development of the fetus.
“Nutrient deficiencies are correctable and they may influence birth outcomes.
“Of course a good diet during pregnancy is important for a healthy pregnancy, but for those who do not have a good diet, multivitamin and mineral supplements will help to reduce the risk of deficiency.”
At the start of the study almost three quarters of the women, 72 per cent, had low level of vitamin D, while 13 per cent were low in iron and 12 per cent were deficient in thiamin, also called vitamin B1.
Those who took the supplement achieved better levels of all three than a control group given a placebo, according to the findings, published in the British Journal of Nutrition.
They were also 50 per cent less likely to have a child with a low birth weight.
More than 400 newly pregnant women started the study, carried out by the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition at London Metropolitan University and the Homerton University Hospital (in East London).
But there was a high dropout rate and only 149 completed the study.
Half were given a multivitamin, Pregnacare, made by Vitabiotics, while the other half were given a placebo.
The researchers tested the women for nutritional deficiencies at the start of the study, and then when they were 26 and 34 weeks pregnant.
Babies are considered to have a low birth weight if they weigh less than 2.5kg (5.5lb).
- Violence Before Pregnancy Can Harm Developing Baby
A new study out of Brigham and Women’s Hospital finds that women who were victims of violence when they were children or teenagers may give birth to infants with compromised immune systems.
Researchers already knew that when pregnant women are stressed, that stress can negatively affect their developing babies. This latest research shows that trauma experienced before pregnancy can also harm a baby. That’s because those children are sometimes born with high levels of an antibody that can make them more prone to allergic reactions.
The Brigham’s Rosalind Wright, the study’s senior author, said that can affect a child’s physical health later in life.
“We know that stress in general — and that includes things like physical and sexual violence during the pregnancy — has an effect on the baby’s immune system, putting them at higher risk to go on to develop chronic, costly pediatric disorders like allergies and asthma,” said Dr. Wright, an associate physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.
Wright plans to follow the health of the children born to the women in her study to find out whether they do end up developing those disorders.
The study appears online in the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology.
- A little stress may boost the fetal brain
High stress during pregnancy is bad news, but it turns out that moderate stress might boost fetal brain development.
Studies in rodents suggest that stress during pregnancy inhibits neural growth, while the children of women who lived in war zones during pregnancy have a higher risk of developing schizophrenia.
To investigate the effects of moderate stress in humans, Janet DiPietro and her colleagues at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, examined 112 healthy pregnant women living in the US three times during their third trimester. They asked the women about their stress levels and recorded fetal movements. They also examined the babies two weeks after birth.
Women who reported higher stress levels during pregnancy had babies that moved around more in the womb. After birth, these babies scored higher on a brain maturation test, although they were more irritable. More active fetuses had better control of body movements after birth.
The stress hormone cortisol plays a role in brain maturation, which may help explain the result (Child Development, vol 81, p 115).
- Pregnancy adversely affects spatial memory
The debate over “preggo brain” continues with the release of a new study:
Pregnant women had reduced spatial recognition memory during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, and this effect persisted for at least three months after birth, new study results suggested.
Researchers assessed the influence of sex steroids, such as estradiol, progesterone, cortisol and prolactin, on memory and attention during pregnancy in 23 women and compared results with 24 nonpregnant women. Using four computer-based tests, the researchers evaluated memory patterns, attention, mood and anxiety during each trimester and at three months after birth; some women were also tested at preconception and at 12 months.
Compared with nonpregnant women, pregnant women performed worse on the spatial memory test during the second trimester (82% vs. 70%; P=.001), third trimester (80% vs. 73%; P=.03) and at three months after birth (80% vs. 68%; P=.0001).
Moreover, pregnant women had decreased mood, greater anxiety levels and a higher risk for depression compared with nonpregnant women. Women in the control group had stable scores across all testing measures; however, a learning effect was observed.
Estradiol, progesterone, cortisol, prolactin and sex hormone-binding globulin were significantly increased during pregnancy. Conversely, dehydroepiandrosterone-sulphate levels were reduced by 50% during pregnancy.
“Forgetfulness and slips of attention are phenomena commonly reported by pregnant women, but scientists have yet to identify a specific mechanism by which this memory impairment might occur,” Diane Farrar, NP, of the Bradford Institute for Health Research, United Kingdom, said in a press release. “Indeed, some question whether the reported memory loss exists at all. More research is now needed to identify the neurological effects of pregnancy to help guide future research and provide information for women and those involved in maternity care.”
